DX11: Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror, and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for Microsoft Windows. Metro 2033 uses the 4A game engine, developed by 4A Games. The 4A Engine supports DirectX-9, 10, and 11, along with NVIDIA PhysX and GeForce 3D Vision.

The 4A engine is multi-threaded in such that only PhysX had a dedicated thread, and uses a task-model without any pre-conditioning or pre/post-synchronizing, allowing tasks to be done in parallel. The 4A game engine can utilize a deferred shading pipeline, and uses tessellation for greater performance, and also has HDR (complete with blue shift), real-time reflections, color correction, film grain and noise, and the engine also supports multi-core rendering.

Metro 2033 featured superior volumetric fog, double PhysX precision, object blur, sub-surface scattering for skin shaders, parallax mapping on all surfaces and greater geometric detail with a less aggressive LODs. Using PhysX, the engine uses many features such as destructible environments, and cloth and water simulations, and particles that can be fully affected by environmental factors.

NVIDIA has been diligently working to promote Metro 2033, and for good reason: it's one of the most demanding PC video games we've ever tested. When their flagship GeForce GTX 480 struggles to produce 27 FPS with DirectX-11 anti-aliasing turned two to its lowest setting, you know that only the strongest graphics processors will generate playable frame rates. All of our tests enable Advanced Depth of Field and Tessellation effects, but disable advanced PhysX options.

Comments

I'm an owner of the 775 model version, I have the card running stable at 950 Core clock / 1200 Memory with the standard voltage. Bumping the voltage to 1200 in Trixx results in a stable 1000 GPU core clock. You need to update Trixx to the latest version.

I used the latest version of TriXX, it just wouldn't go above 860-870MHz (Core) without getting artifacts. Anyway, you've got the non-OC version with different ICs, which is one of my key-points in my article.

I have experience with the OC version as well, it can hit 1GHz @ 1250 (Voltage setting in Trixx) and run stable however it runs a bit hot after a while in Furmark. Currently I have his OC'd to 950 / 1150 without artifacts at the stock voltage with the fan speed at 1175.

Really? Everywhere I read about a person getting the OC version just complains about not supporting voltage changes and trying to change it for the non-OC version. There are some threads at Xtreme Systems about volt-modding as that's the only way to do it. Just to add, you're using TriXX 3.0.2 BETA, right? That's the latest version announced at Sapphire's homepage.Glad you liked the review.

Yes 3.0.2, the slider just slides over. I was at my buddies house looking at the card to make sure it was the OC version and it allowed the voltage to be modified. He however bought it Openbox (which I didn't know) so perhaps the person who sold it to him already unlocked the voltage.

It's not that the voltage is locked, problem is that this specific version includes a different GPU Core voltage controller, which has no software support (yet), not even with TriXX or MSI AF. Since the controller they used isn't very common, I doubt we'll see something avalable soon.

Anyway, if you can re-check and try to modify voltage, that would be great, because that could mean GIGABYTE is making a different version (revision) with another GPU controller.

Unfortunatelly is a lot os problems with this (GigabyteHD6850)videocards.There ara many users who reported when he playing games after a short period of time the monitor instantly turn off and apear the NO SIGNAL labell, and nothings help just a restart.Can I ask which BIOS version are you used when you make this rewiew? Because in the last 3 months arived 3 BIOS versions.The last BIOS changed the card specification. IDLE 40% cooler, and the GPU RAM ferequency was modyfied to 775/1005.(the original was 25%cooler speed and 775/1000.Another strange thing, the factory original bios set the coolers to run at 73% and ofcourse the sound level was realy anoying.

I didn't have any of the problems mentioned. I used the BIOS shipped with this sample, which is displayed at the testing methodology section. Another thing is that this is the OCed version, which means it's got 820 MHz/ 1050MHz instead of 775MHz.GIGABYTE doesn't display any BIOS update for this model, but I've checked and there's a BIOS update for the non-OC model.

Hi, Yes on the Gigabyte webpage ,is a new BIOS for "basic" Gigabyte HD 6850 cards (775/1000).This arrived at 14 january 2011 .As I mentioned in my previous post the Vram clock and the cooler speed was changed (Vram from 1000 to 1005 and cooler from 25% to 40%).Unfortunatelly doesent solve the black screen problems for everybody.Some users reported the BS with this bios version to.

I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I'm still using this little puppy and it's not giving me any problems. Could you tell us what are the conditions or signals before going to black screen? Perhaps I could try.

win 7 64bit genuine, PSU enermax 600W 87+,HD Gigabyte HD 6850 BIOS F3_B , Catalyst 10.12(but the new 11.1 give the same BS problem)The problem I meet undert FarCry2 benchmark ultra high settings full hd dirX10, Crysis- paradise lost level ,GTA4 and NFSShift(all games full HD aa8x vsync on) The GPU temperature never exceed 68C.Far Cry2 bench ~ 55C , Crysis 67 C, GTA IV 68C.The RAM temperature I dont know because I dont know any software which can mesure this.There is some rummors which say the memory are faulty , but I dont want comment this because until today I dont see any official evidence as the Hynix memory cause this problem.I check my card temperRATURE with ccc OVERDRIVE, aida64 and MSI AFTERBURNER all programs show me the same temperature so resulting the heat level is ok. The F3_C bios fom 14 january seems to resolve the BS problem to me but I am not calm at all because I know a couple of users which card is faulty with this BIOS version to.I atach a couple of videos what I find to youtube.My system (and my buddys sitem ) behaviour is 100% the same.None of us overclocked her card! every card working on factory clocked level 775/1000 1,5 V. Many serbian, hungarian, romanian (but not only this country) forums is full with users who have exact the same problem.Most error was reported with have gigabyte cards , but is other vendors card which have this BS NO Signal problem too. Asus,Saphire,MSI ,etc

I forgot to tell one thing, last year in november -december when the it was not aviable the F3C(fixed?) Bios on the Gigabyte page , a couple of users trying different "tricks? and a couple of person report , if downclock her cards memoryclock at 900 the problem disapear.( 775/900 )MHZ)_. Anyway in my opinion this is not a correct sollution.NObody spending her money to be forced to downclocked her card.

Here is the link with the new BIOS.If somebody have the same problem he can try it maybe will help but not 100%.And once again! the cooler rotaion will become 40% (original os 25%)and the memory frequencies will rising from 1000 to 1005 Mhz.This BIOS is only for GV-R685D5-1GD cards. I dont dont know why was necessary this modification but to be honest I like att all,especially after saw a couple of the same cards ,which working perfect with original BIOS(775/1000, 1,5V ) and doesent make Black screen error.

I recently had the same issue with my HD 6850. Mine has been OC'd to 950/1200 on stock voltages.Ran OCCT for an hour with no errors detected.Did a memtest for a whole night with no errors.

My problem is after playing CS:Source for more than an hour..my computer screen turns black and shows "No Signal" and at the same time my computer freezes and the sound just keeps repeating the last thing that was heard.

I can't do anything but do a hard reset..and now I notice when I boot up Windows there's an extra black screen with a messed up windows logo right before Windows actually loads up.

I also forgot to mention that I recently updated MSI Afterburner 2.1.0 beta 7 coming from beta 6...and I noticed this happening... I might revert back to the old beta 6 later when I get home and do some more gaming to see if that fixes the problem...

Hi Folks i've just installed my brand new HD 6850 GV-R685OC-1GD, and as per i upgraded from Sapphire 5570 1GB DDR3 to this new one i've already had the Catalyst Control Center installed. I just put the GPU and the driver was automatically installed by w7 and updated by Catlayst (i did not installed the Gigabyte installation CD)On AMD software by checking the box to enable Graphics Over Drive:Automatic OC options on AMD Vision Control Center are:GPU range: from 600 to 985 (just drag the bar)MeM range: from 1050 to 1260 (just drang the bar)

My question: can i safely drag to 958 and 1260? as they appear as option to me?very good review by the way

You can do it safely, as in "it won't physically damage your card". However, there's no guarantee the card will run with those settings: you could see visual artifacts, or the computer could lock up or crash.

The Radeon HD 6850 is a good overclocking card, but the limit varies from card to card. I suggest finding the maximum GPU and Memory overclock (GPU is more important, and memory really doesn't/shouldn't be overclocked), then backing down 10MHz or more.